SPACs stand for special purpose acquisition companies, which raise capital in an initial public offering and use the cash to merge with a private company and take it public, usually within two years.
The market enjoyed a record year with more than $160 billion raised on U.S. exchanges in 2021, nearly double the prior year's level, according to data from SPAC Research. Investors once piled into shares of these empty corporate shells hoping they would hit a home run. After a year of issuance explosion, there are now almost 600 SPACs searching for an acquisition target, according to SPAC Research. As the market gets increasingly competitive, some announced deals failed to make it to fruition.
The planned merger of Fertitta Entertainment and the blank-check firm Fast Acquisition Corp was called off at the end of last year. Recent deals that have been abandoned also included online grill retailer BBQGuys, fintech firm Acorns and cloud software platform ServiceMax. Meanwhile, there has been a growing number of SPAC listing withdrawals, meaning the sponsors decided to pull the plug on their listing after filing the initial S-1. There were nearly 20 such cases in the month of January, a jump from only single digits in the prior two quarters, according to SPAC Research.Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in